The Irish: Education Becomes a Viable Option

The Old Country: Economics

Many of the Irish immigrants to the Slate Valley were skilled quarrymen from County Tipperary, County Kilkenny and County Clare. Slate had been produced in these counties since medieval times, but the slate industry remained small. Ireland was primarily an agricultural country where a small class of Protestant landlords had come to possess much of the land through a combination of conquest, colonization and discriminatory legislation against Catholics. Most Irish Catholics leased and worked this land, often at high rents. Irish farmers subdivided their leased holdings into tiny plots, providing an equal share to each of their sons upon their death. As the size of farms decreased, the Irish became increasingly dependent upon the high yielding potato, introduced from the Americas, to feed their families. Based upon the prolific potato, Ireland actually experienced a population boom in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. When a blight caused by a potato fungus destroyed the harvest between 1845 and 1851, Ireland experienced widespread famine, mass mortality and large-scale emigration to America, impacting farmers and quarrymen alike. Even after land reforms between 1880 and 1902, mass migration to America due to population pressures continued into the early twentieth century.

New Lives: Economics

The largest wave of Irish immigration occurred during the Great Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. These were desperate people in the poorest of conditions. Many of them settled in the place of their landing, in big cities like New York and Boston, where they took up employment as unskilled laborers working for low wages. Others moved on and soon the Irish were spread across the United States, including the Slate Valley. Many of the Irish who came to the Slate Valley were different than the typical immigrant from Ireland. Like the Welsh, they had developed valuable industrial experience and skills from working in quarries in the old country. Several of them became owners of slate mills and quarries, particularly in the northern part of the valley around Fair Haven, Castleton and Poultney. This successful core of Irish immigrants attracted other Irish immigrants seeking opportunities through family and local connections. Although never as numerous in the quarries as the Welsh or the later Eastern European workers, the Irish formed an important ethnic community in the Slate Valley.

Next Generations: Economics

Few of the Irish slate companies had a second or third generation, partly because the industry suffered economic downturns further into the twentieth century and because the next generations wanted an easier life. Having been encouraged by their immigrant parents to take advantage of educational opportunities, they found more secure career opportunities in the Slate Valley. Some entered professions that led them to more lucrative jobs in the cities.

The Old Country: Culture

Although the Gaelic language had once been widely spoken in Ireland, by the late nineteenth century most Irish Catholics spoke English as the language of "getting on" in the world. With the exception of the northern province of Ulster, the vast majority of the Irish were Catholics. They developed a unique brand of Catholicism incorporating much Irish tradition and folklore. The United Kingdom was a Protestant state and, like in England and Wales, the Anglican Church was the established church of Ireland. A minority of the Irish were Protestants, but they held most of the wealth, status and power in society. The majority of Catholics, on the other hand, were regarded with suspicion and hostility and often treated as second-class citizens. It is no surprise that nationalism was strong among Irish Catholics. They demanded equality of treatment and the right to govern their own affairs, and asserted the value and worth of their own cultural traditions. Even though the British government introduced a variety of reforms, including the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1867, the Irish were embittered and resentful subjects of the British Crown.

New Lives: Culture

The majority of the population of the United States was Protestant and thought of their country as a Protestant society. When waves of poor Irish immigrants began to wash up on American shores during the Great Famine, many Americans saw them as a disruptive presence and regarded the Irish with the same kind of suspicion and hostility that they received in the United Kingdom. The Slate Valley was no exception. The Irish, however, soon adapted to their new situation in America. In the Slate Valley, they built their own churches, institutions and fraternal organizations like the Ancient Order of Hibernians. In the United States as a whole, they took advantage of their numbers and their new political rights to become the dominant presence in the Catholic Church and to obtain positions of power and influence in local and national politics. Although discriminated against as Catholics, the Irish were an English-speaking people who seemed less alien and foreign than later immigrants from Eastern Europe and Italy.

Next Generations: Culture

Not wanting to be discriminated against, the Irish were quick to assimilate into the culture of the United States. They became proud and patriotic Americans, and many became powerful political and labor union leaders, particularly in the cities were there were large percentages of people of Irish descent. Nationally, their numbers dominated police, fire and public service departments. The growing Catholic Church reinforced the importance and observance of religious holidays, and Irish-American parish priests outnumbered other nationalities up through the 1930s. While entering the social mainstream of American society, the next generations continued to celebrate their Irish heritage through theater, literature and music.

The Old Country: Education

Like in Wales, the main institution to provide elementary education was the state funded established Anglican Church. The Catholic community justifiably feared that such education would be used to proselytize their children and so demanded state funding for all schools. By mid-century, a National School system oversaw both Protestant and Catholic schools that were privately owned and managed but state funded. Prompted by the need to address the conflict and division in Irish society, this was the earliest form of public education in the British Isles and the Irish in general enjoyed a high literacy rate. A similar system of secondary schools began in 1878, and such Catholic schools were often run by religious orders like the Christian Brothers and the Ursuline Nuns. Although education was available, many Irish youths were forced by economic circumstance to leave school at a young age. In 1908 the state created the National University of Ireland, a secular institution formed primarily to provide higher education for Catholics, and the Irish middle class seized the opportunity.

New Lives: Education

Supported by their rising prosperity in America, many Irish families took advantage of the educational opportunities that their new country provided. The Irish found education to be the key to acceptance, success and status in American society. A career as a teacher of the nation's new elementary and secondary schools became commonplace among the daughters and granddaughters of the immigrants. In the Slate Valley, private Catholic colleges like

Fordham and Holy Cross were among the favored universities of the children of Irish slate business families, and Irish women comprised a majority of teachers in Castleton and Poultney around the turn of the twentieth century.

New Generations: Education

Nationally and locally, Irish immigration to the United States is a success story in which education has played a significant role. Irish-Americans took advantage of public grade schools and also established Catholic parochial schools that taught religious values. In the Slate Valley, American-born Irish attended normal schools, land grant colleges and private universities before and after the turn of the twentieth century. They have entered many walks of life becoming teachers, business owners, farmers, lawyers, doctors and theologians to mention a few.